Environmental Science: Toward a Sustainable Future, 12e (Wright)

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CHAPTER 8
The Human Population
Chapter Outline:
I. Humans and Population Ecology
A. r- or K-Strategists
B. Revolutions
1. Neolithic Revolution
2. Industrial Revolution
3. Medical Revolution
4. The Green Revolution
5. The Newest Revolution
C. Do Humans Have a Carrying Capacity?
1. Planetary Boundaries
2. Picking Up the Population Pace
II. Population and Consumption: Different Worlds
A. Rich Nations, Middle-Income Nations, Poor Nations
B. Moving Up: Good News
C. Population Growth in Rich and Poor Nations
D. Different Populations, Different Problems
1. Effect of Wealth
2. Ecological Footprint
3. Inequalities Within Countries
4. Enter Stewardship
III. Consequences of Population Growth and Affluence
A. Countries with Rapid Growth
1. Land Ownership Reform
2. Intensifying Cultivation
3. Opening Up New Lands
4. Illicit Activities
5. Migration Between Countries
6. Refugees
7. Migration to Cities
8. Challenges to Governments

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 B. Countries with Affluence
IV. Projective Future Populations
A. Population Profiles
B. Predicting Populations
1. Population Projections for Developed Countries
i. Graying of the population
ii. Less Graying Here
2. Population Projections for Developing Countries
i. Burkina Faso and Indonesia
ii. Growth Impacts
C. Population Momentum
D. The Demographic Transition
1. Birth and Death Rates
i. Epidemiologic Transition
ii. Fertility Transition
2. Phases of the Demographic Transition

Learning Objectives:
1. Humans and Population Ecology: Explain how humans, like other organisms, are subject to natural laws and
ecological processes. Describe some significant differences between humans and other creatures in their ability
to change their world.
2. Population and Consumption—Different Worlds: Explain the relationship between income and fertility in
countries around the world.
3. Consequences of Population Growth and Affluence: Describe the likely outcome of unlimited population
growth or unlimited use of natural resources. Explain ways in which both population growth and consumption
patterns must be addressed for stewardship of resources to occur.
4. Protecting Future Populations: Social scientists use a number of tools to understand populations and project
likely future outcomes, such as the demographic transition—a shift from high fertility and mortality to low
fertility and mortality.

Instructional Goals:
1. Humans are a part of nature and subject to its laws, but upon closer inspection, the global human population
holds a special place in the biosphere. Changes in the relationship of humans to their environment have caused
major environmental revolutions throughout time.

2. Different people, in different parts of the world, live greatly different lives and therefore have greatly different
types of impact on the environment.

3. Both countries with rapid growth and countries with affluence have to deal with population issues and the
environmental consequences of those issues.

4. Population projections for developing and developed countries vary greatly. Developing countries tend to have
a large base of young people and a small aged population whereas developed countries tend to have a large
population of aged individuals with a small base of young.

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Concepts and Connections:
Human population dynamics will be a topic about which students will know some information. Some of the
information will be incorrect. Problems created by population size are seen by most Americans as problems outside
our country. We fail to recognize that some of our urban problems are similar to problems observed in developing
countries—overcrowding, lack of sanitation, poor health care, crime, poverty, and high illiteracy rates.

Americans, and others living in the developed world, are connected to the environmental consequences of
too many people in the developing world because of our actions. The purchase of illegal drugs or endangered
wildlife is likely to lead to adverse environmental consequences in a developing country.

Connecting an individual’s consumption pattern with the related environmental consequences helps to
create an understanding that no country or individual is solely at fault for our current environmental dilemma. All
the substances on the Earth are connected by cycles. Humans in different countries are also connected to each other.
Immigration into the United States is discussed by some as the cause of our population problem. Immigration into
the United States is a population problem only insofar as it may result in increased consumption rates due to the
greater average consumption rate of Americans as compared to people in developing countries. Immigrants into the
United States do not increase the world population numbers, and they quickly match U.S. reproductive rates.

Concepts in Context:
Population dynamics of non-human species (Chapter 5) can be related to human population dynamics. The
primary difference between humans and nonhumans is the human ability to choose the number of offspring we have
(Chapter 9).

The impact of human consumption rates can be related to many adverse environmental consequences. Air
pollution (Chapter 19) in the United States has not decreased despite substantial technological improvements due to
the increase in the average number of miles driven by Americans. Our fuel consumption rate also can be related to
the possibility of global climate change (Chapter 18). The rate of production of ozone depleting chemicals is due to
consumer demand in the developed nations (Chapter 18). Loss of biodiversity (Chapter 6) is a problem in the
developed countries when wetlands are drained for farming or housing, forests are invaded by those attempting to
escape the city, and so forth. Water pollution (Chapter 20) in the developed world is a result of both nutrient loading
and the disposal of unwanted chemicals—the solution to pollution is dilution. In the developed world, large
quantities of energy are used per person, and each of these energy sources has adverse environmental impacts
(Chapters 14, 15, 16).

In developing countries, the impact of human population size can be related to many environmental
problems. Soil erosion (Chapter 11) and loss of biodiversity (Chapter 6) due to people moving on to previously
unfarmed lands are very severe in many developing countries. Air pollution (Chapter 19) in the cities of many
developing countries exceeds internationally recognized standards. Between the use of outdated technology and
financial inability to maintain them, many automobiles in the developing world are severe polluters. Water pollution
(Chapter 20) is mainly a problem due to nutrient loading. The quantity of energy used per person in the developed
world is small when compared to the quantity used per person in the developed world. The primary sources of
energy, gathered wood and dung, result in increased soil erosion, diversion of nutrients from soil, air pollution, and
substantial energy expenditures by the individuals doing the gathering.

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Key Terms and Vocabulary:
Demography, demographers, population, Paleolithic, Neolithic Revolution, Industrial Revolution, pesticide
resistance, Environmental Revolution, developed countries, developing countries, total fertility rate, replacement-
level fertility, demographic transition, IPAT formula, ImPACT, ecological footprint, longevity, population profile,
age structure, graying, natural increase, population momentum, crude birthrate (CBR), crude death rate (CDR),
epidemiologic

Discussion, Activities, and Labs:

1. Divide the class into groups of three to four students. Ask each group to list four resources that are needed for
survival (food, water, shelter, fuel, or clothing). Next ask the students to list five things that might happen if the
number of people in a family, a village, or a country, is increased but the quantity of resources remains constant.
The goal is to have students think about how if the number of people is increased and the quantity of resources
does not increase, then there are fewer resources per person. Poverty is the result of attempting to spread the same
quantity of resources over more people.

2. Make a population profile from the members of the class. Ask each student two class sessions before the session
on human population dynamics to indicate how many people in their family (grandparents, parents, siblings,
themselves, and children) are in each of the five-year age groups. Also ask for the sex of each individual. (The
information would be most accurate if a form with the age brackets and sex of each individual is provided.)
Assure the students that no information other than the five-year age bracket and sex are necessary. Provide the
students with the information from the class and have groups of two to three students create a population profile
of the class and the class members’ families. Discuss the similarities and differences between the class-generated
profile and the profile for the country.

3. Divide the students into groups of two to three. Using the population profile created by the class and the current
birthrate for various countries (include both developed and developing), have the students determine the number
of people who will be born in the next ten years. Will the population of the country increase, decrease, or remain
the same?

4. Population momentum, the time period between when fertility rates equal replacement level and the number of
births equal the number of deaths, is not typically understood by students. Using the population profile of the
United States, starting from 1955 when the fertility rate was 3.7 through the drop to 1.75 in 1975 to our current
fertility rate of 2.0, have the students determine when the population will stop growing. For this exercise, do not
include immigration or emigration. The exercise works just as well if you have the students work with round
numbers for ease of calculation.

Suggested Lecture Format:

I. Humans and Population Ecology
Humans are a part of nature and subject to its laws, but upon closer inspection, the global human
population holds a special place in the biosphere. Changes in the relationship of humans to their
environment have cause major environmental revolutions throughout time. See Figure 8-1. See also
Discussion Topic #1.

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 A. r- or K-Strategists—Although it seems that the global human population is growing on a J-curve,
humans are K-strategists; K-strategists typically remain near carrying capacity.

B. Revolutions—“In the past there have been several large-scale upheavals in the way humans do
things. These include the development of agriculture, the Industrial Revolution, modern medicine,
the green agricultural revolution, and the current environmental revolution.”
1. Neolithic Revolution—Once humans began to farm, they settled into permanent living areas,
domesticated animals, developed technology, began to store food, reduced mortality all of
which lead to an increase in population. See Figure 8-2.
2. Industrial Revolution—Technological improvements made possible by the use of fossil fuels
allowed humans to do work that was never possible before. See Figure 8-3.
3. Medical Revolution—Before the 1800’s, mortality rate was high because of the prevalence of
diseases. The discovery of antibiotics, vaccinations, and improvements in sewage treatment
and nutrition reduced mortality and allowed for population expansion. See Figure 8-4.
4. The Green Revolution—“The development of chemical pesticides in World War II, along
with an increase in irrigation and fertilizer use, dramatically increased crop yields." See
Figure 8-5.
5. The Newest Revolution—New technologies like the Internet may lead to a real “green”
revolution, and environmental revolution.

C. Do Humans Have a Carrying Capacity?—“Throughout history, humans have improved their

survival rate, increased their populations, and increased their life span by doing some things other
organisms cannot do (or cannot do on the scale we can).” However, we have recently hit limits,
like a reduction in non-renewable resources that may finally be limiting to population growth.
1. Planetary Boundaries—“Scientists claimed that there are a series of limits, which act as
‘tipping points’ that, if passed, would keep humans from surviving.”
2. Picking up the Population Pace—Since 1830 the human populations has been growing to the
point of doubling in short periods of time.

II. Population and Consumption: Different Worlds

Different people, in different parts of the world, live greatly different lives and therefore have greatly
different types of impact on the environment. See Figure 8-6.

A. Rich Nations, Middle-Income Nations, Poor Nations—“The high income nations are commonly
referred to as developed countries, whereas the middle- and low-income countries are often
grouped together and referred to as developing countries. See Figure 8-7.

B. Moving up: Good News—In just a few years the percentage of countries in the world that have a
majority of the population living in poverty has reduced dramatically. See Figure 8-7.

C. Population Growth in Rich and Poor Nations—“Total fertility rates have dropped all over the
world, but most dramatically in the high-income countries. In developing countries, fertility rates
have come down considerably.” See Figure 8-8 and Figure 8-9.

D. Different Populations, Different Problems—According to the IPAT formula “environmental

impact (I) equals population (P), multiplied by the level of technology of the society (T).”
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Another document from Scribd.com that is
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manner of the pierced fretwork, and it was evidently contemporaneous
with the latter, viz. dating from the late Ming period onwards (Plate 68,
Fig. 3).
It will be convenient here to consider another type of decoration
which was probably in use in the early periods of the Ming dynasty,
certainly in the reign of Wan Li, and which has continued to modern
times. This is the decoration in white clay varying in thickness from
substantial reliefs to translucent brush work in thin slip or liquid clay,
which allows the colour of the background to appear through it. The
designs are painted or modelled in white against dark or light-coloured
grounds of various shades—lustrous coffee brown (tzŭ chin), deep blue,
slaty blue, lavender, celadon, plain white, and crackled creamy white—
and they are usually slight and artistically executed. The process, which
is the same in principle as in the modern pâte sur pâte, consisted of first
covering the ground with colouring matter, then tracing the design in
white slip (i.e. liquid clay) or building it up with strips of clay modelled
with a wet brush, and finally covering it with a colourless glaze. In this
case the white design has a covering of glaze. When a celadon green
ground is used the design is applied direct to the biscuit and the celadon
glaze covers the whole, but being quite transparent it does not obscure
the white slip beneath. Sometimes, however, as in Fig. 3 of Plate 75, the
design is unglazed and stands out in a dry white “biscuit.” Elaborate and
beautiful examples of slip decoration were made in the K’ang Hsi and
later periods, and Pére d’Entrecolles, writing in 1722, describes their
manufacture, stating that steatite and gypsum were used to form the
white slip.[189] The Ming specimens are usually of heavier make and less
graceful form, and distinguished by simplicity and strength of design, the
backgrounds being usually lustrous brown or different shades of blue.
They consist commonly of bottles, jars, flower pots, bulb bowls, dishes,
and narghili bowls, and many of them were clearly made for export to
Persia and India, where they are still to be found. On rare examples the
slip decoration is combined with passages of blue and white.
There is little to guide us to the dating of these wares, and marks are
exceptional.[190] There is, however, a flower pot in the British Museum
with white design of ch’i-lin on a brown ground which has the late Ming
mark yü t’ang chia ch’i[191]; and a specimen with an Elizabethan metal
mount was exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1910.[192] These
are, no doubt, of Ching-tê Chên make; but there is a curious specimen in
the British Museum which seems to be of provincial manufacture. It is a
dish with slaty blue ground and plant designs with curious feathery
foliage traced with considerable delicacy. The border of running floral
scroll has the flowers outlined in dots, and the whole execution of the
piece is as distinctive as the strange coarse base which shows a brown-
red biscuit and heavy accretions of sand and grit at the foot rim. The
same base and the same peculiarities of design appeared on a similar dish
with celadon glaze exhibited by Mrs. Halsey at the Burlington Fine Arts
Club in 1910,[193] and in the British Museum there are other dishes
clearly of the same make, but with (1) crackled grey white glaze and
coarsely painted blue decoration, and (2) with greenish white glaze and
enamelled designs in iron red and the Ming blue green. It is clear that we
have to deal here with the productions of one factory, and though we
have no direct clue to its identity, it certainly catered for the export trade
to India and the islands; for the enamelled dishes of this type have been
found in Sumatra. Mrs. Halsey’s dish came from India, and fragments of
the blue and enamelled types were found in the ruins of the palace at
Bijapur,[194] which was destroyed by Aurungzebe in 1686. Probably the
factory was situated in Fukien or Kuangtung, where it would be in direct
touch with the southern export trade, and the style of the existing
specimens points to the late Ming as the period of its activity.
The process of marbling or “graining” has been tried by potters all the
world over, and the Chinese were no exceptions. The effect is produced
either by slips of two or more coloured clays worked about on the
surface, or by blending layers of clays in two or more colours (usually
brown and white) in the actual body. Early examples of this marbling
occur among the T’ang wares, and Mr. Eumorfopoulos has examples of
the Ming and later periods. One of these, a figure with finely crackled
buff glaze and passages of brown and white marbling in front and on the
back, has an incised inscription, stating that it was modelled by Ch’ên
Wên-ching in the year 1597.[195]
The use of underglaze red in the Wan Li period has already been
mentioned (p. 59), and though Chinese writers classed it as chi hung they
would not admit it to an equality with the brilliant reds of the fifteenth
century.[196] Where red is named in the lists of Imperial porcelains we
are left in doubt as to its nature, whether under or over the glaze; but
there are two little shallow bowls in the British Museum with a curious
sponged blue associated with indifferent underglaze red painting, which
bear the late Ming mark yü t’ang chia ch’i.[197] A bowl of lotus flower
pattern, similar in form to that described on p. 66, but deeper, and
painted with similar designs in pale underglaze red, though bearing the
Ch’êng Hua mark, seems to belong to the late Ming period.
The Wan Li polychromes will naturally include continuations of the
early Ming types, such as the large jars with decoration in raised outline,
pierced or carved and filled in with glazes of the demi-grand feu—
turquoise, violet purple, green and yellow—wares with flat washes of the
same turquoise and purple, incised designs filled in with transparent
glazes of the three colours (san ts’ai), green, yellow and aubergine, and,
what is probably more truly characteristic of this period, combinations of
the first and last styles. A good example of the transparent colours over
incised designs is Fig. 1 of Plate 79, a vase of the form known as mei
p’ing with green Imperial dragons in a yellow ground and the Wan Li
mark. All three of the san ts’ai colours were also used separately as
monochromes with or without engraved designs under the glaze, a
striking example in the Pierpont Morgan Collection being a vase with
dragon handles and engraved designs under a brilliant iridescent green
glaze, “which appears like gold in the sunlight.”[198] But though these
types persisted, they would no doubt be gradually superseded by simpler
and more effective methods of pictorial decoration in painted outline on
the biscuit, filled in with washes of transparent enamels in the same three
colours. These softer enamels, which contained a high proportion of lead
and could be fired at the relatively low temperature of the muffle kiln,
must have been used to a considerable extent in the late Ming period,
though their full development belongs to the reign of K’ang Hsi, and
there will always be a difficulty in separating the examples of these two
periods, whether the colours be laid on in broad undefined washes, as on
certain figures and on the “tiger skin” bowls and dishes, or brushed over
a design carefully outlined in brown or black pigment. There is one
species of the latter family with a ground of formal wave pattern usually
washed with green and studded with floating plum blossoms, in which
are galloping sea horses or symbols, or both, reserved and washed with
the remaining two colours, or with a faintly greenish flux, almost
colourless, which does duty for white. This species is almost always
described as Ming; and with some reason, for the sea wave and plum
blossom pattern is mentioned in the Wan Li lists as in polychrome
combined with blue decoration. But the danger of assuming a specimen
to be Ming because it exhibits a design which occurred on Ming
porcelain is shown by an ink pallet in the British Museum, which is
dated in the thirty-first year of K’ang Hsi, i.e. 1692. This important piece
(Plate 94, Fig. 2) is decorated in enamels on the biscuit over black
outlines with the wave and plum blossom pattern, the same yellow trellis
diaper which appears on the base of the vase in Plate 97, and other diaper
patterns which occur on so many of the so-called Ming figures. This
piece is, in fact, a standing rebuke to those careless classifiers who
ascribe all on-biscuit enamel indiscriminately to the Ming period, and I
am strongly of opinion that most of the dishes,[199] bowls, ewers, cups
and saucers, and vases with the wave and plum blossom pattern and
horses, etc., in which a strong green enamel gives the dominating tint,
belong rather to the K’ang Hsi period. The same kind of decoration is
sometimes found applied to glazed porcelain, as on Fig. 3 of Plate 79, a
covered potiche-shaped vase in the British Museum with the design of
“jewel mountains and sea waves,” with floating blossoms, and pa
pao[200] symbols in green, yellow and white in an aubergine ground,
supplemented by a few plain rings in underglaze blue. The style of this
vase and the quality of the paste suggest that it really does belong to the
late Ming period.
 Plate 79.—Wan Li Polychrome Porcelain.
Fig. 1.—Vase (mei p’ing) with engraved design, green in a yellow ground, Imperial dragons in
clouds, rock and wave border. Wan Li mark. Height 15 inches. British Museum.
Fig. 2.—Bottle with pierced casing, phœnix design, etc., painted in underglaze blue and enamels;
cloisonné enamel neck. Height 23 inches. Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Fig. 3.—Covered Jar, plum blossoms and symbols in a wave pattern ground, coloured enamels in
an aubergine background. Height 15½ inches. British Museum.

The use of enamels over the glaze was greatly extended in the Wan Li
period, though practically all the types in vogue at this time can be
paralleled in the Chia Ching porcelain, and, indeed, have been discussed
under that heading. There is the red family in which the dominant colour
is an iron red, either of curiously sticky appearance and dark coral tint or
with the surface dissolved in a lustrous iridescence. Yellow, usually a
dark impure colour, though sometimes washed on extremely thin and
consequently light and transparent, and transparent greens, which vary
from leaf tint to emerald and bluish greens, occur in insignificant
quantity. This red family is well illustrated by a splendid covered jar in
the Salting Collection (Plate 80), and by three marked specimens in the
British Museum, an ink screen, a bowl, and a circular stand. It also
occurs on another significant piece in the latter collection, a dish
admirably copying the Ming style but marked Shên tê t’ang po ku
chih[201] (antique made for the Shên-tê Hall), a palace mark of the Tao
Kuang period (1821–1850). It should be added that this colour
scheme[202] is frequently seen on the coarsely made and roughly
decorated jars and dishes with designs of lions in peony scrolls, etc., no
doubt made in large quantities for export to India and Persia. They are
not uncommon to-day, and in spite of their obvious lack of finish they
possess certain decorative qualities, due chiefly to the mellow red, which
are not to be despised.
But the characteristic polychrome of the period, the Wan Li wu ts’ai,
combines enamelled decoration with underglaze blue, and this again can
be divided into two distinctive groups. One of these is exemplified by
Plate 81, an Imperial vase shaped after a bronze model and of the same
massive build as its fellow in blue and white, which was described on p.
67. Here the underglaze blue is supplemented by the green, the impure
yellow and the sticky coral red of the period, and the subject as on the
blue and white example consists of dragons and phœnixes among floral
scrolls with borders of rock and wave pattern. The object of the
decorator seems to have been to distract the eye from the underlying
ware, as if he were conscious of its relative inferiority, and the effect of
this close design, evenly divided between the blue and the enamels, is
rather checkered when viewed from a distance. But both form and
decoration are characteristic of the Wan Li Imperial vases, as is shown
by kindred specimens, notably by a tall vase in the Pierpont Morgan
Collection, of which the design is similar and the form even more metal-
like, having on the lower part the projecting dentate ribs seen on square
bronze and cloisonné beakers of the Ming dynasty. Two other marked
examples of this colour scheme, from which the absence of aubergine is
noteworthy, are (1) a ewer in the British Museum with full-face dragons
on the neck supporting the characters wan shou (endless longevity) and
with floral sprays on a lobed body, and (2) a straight-sided box with
moulded six-foil elevation, painted on each face with a screen before
which is a fantastic animal on a stand, and a monkey, dog and cat in
garden surroundings.
The second—and perhaps the more familiar—group of Wan Li wu
ts’ai is illustrated by Fig. 1 of Plate 82, on which all the colours,
including aubergine, are represented in company with the underglaze
blue. There is no longer the same patchy effect, because the blue is more
evenly balanced by broader washes of the enamel colours, particularly
the greens. The design of this particular example is a figure subject taken
from Chinese history (shih wu), supplemented by a brocade band of
floral scroll work on the shoulder and formal patterns on the neck and
above the base. The former and the latter positions are commonly
occupied in these vases by a band of stiff leaves and a border of false
gadroons, both alternately blue and coloured. The stiff leaves in this
instance are replaced by floral sprays, and the coloured designs are
outlined in a red brown pigment. The mark under the base is the “hare,”
which has already been noticed on examples of late Ming blue and
white.[203] Another late Ming mark, yü t’ang chia ch’i,[204] occurs on a
dish in the British Museum, with design of the Eight Immortals paying
court to the god of Longevity (pa hsien p’êng shou), painted in the same
style but with a predominance of underglaze blue.
 PLATE 80
Covered Jar or potiche. Painted in iron red and green enamels,
with a family scene in a garden, and brocade borders of ju-i
pattern, peony scrolls, etc. Sixteenth century.
Height 17½ inches. Salting Collection (Victoria and Albert Museum).
 But it is not necessary to multiply instances, for the type is well
known, and must have survived for a long period. Indeed, many
competent authorities assign the bulk of this kind of porcelain to the
Yung Chêng period (1723–1735); and it is undoubtedly true that
imitations of Wan Li polychrome were made at this time, for they are
specifically mentioned in the Yung Chêng list of Imperial wares.[205] But
I am inclined to think that the number of these late attributions has been
exaggerated, and that they do not take sufficiently into account the
interval of forty-two years between the reigns of Wan Li and K’ang Hsi.
It was a distracted time when the potters must have depended largely
upon their foreign trade in default of Imperial orders, and it is probable
that much of this ware, characterised by strong, rather coarse make,
greyish glaze and boldly executed decoration in the Wan Li colour
scheme, belongs to this intermediate period. The vases usually have the
flat unglazed base which characterises the blue and white of this time.
[206] Two handsome beakers, with figure subjects and borders of the

peach, pomegranate and citron, and a beautiful jar with phœnix beside a
rock and flowering shrubs, in the British Museum, seem to belong to this
period, but there are numerous other examples, many of which are coarse
and crude, and obviously made wholesale for the export trade.
Among the various examples of Wan Li polychrome exhibited at the
Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1910, there was one which calls for special
mention, a box[207] with panels of floral designs surrounded by fruit and
diaper patterns in the usual colours of the wu ts’ai, with the addition of
an overglaze blue enamel. It is true that this blue enamel was clearly of
an experimental nature and far from successful, but its presence on this
marked and indubitable Wan Li specimen is noteworthy. For it has long
been an article of faith with collectors that this blue enamel does not
antedate the Ch’ing dynasty, being, in fact, a characteristic feature of the
K’ang Hsi famille verte porcelain. The rule still remains an excellent
one, and this solitary exception only serves to emphasise its general
truth, showing as it does that so far the attempts at a blue enamel were a
failure. But at the same time the discovery is a warning against a too
rigid application of those useful rules of thumb, based on the
generalisation from what must, after all, be a limited number of
instances.
Marked examples of Wan Li monochromes are rarely seen, but we
may assume that the glazes in use in the previous reigns continued to be
made—blue, lavender, turquoise, violet and aubergine brown, yellow in
various shades, leaf green, emerald green, apple green, celadon, coffee
brown, and golden brown—besides the more or less accidental effects in
the mottled and flambé glazes. The plain white bowls of the period had a
high reputation,[208] and a good specimen in the British Museum, though
far from equalling the Yung Lo bowl (Plate 59), is nevertheless a thing of
beauty. The white wares of the Ting type made at this time have been
already discussed.[209] The monochrome surfaces were not infrequently
relieved by carved or etched designs under the glaze, but it must be
confessed that monochromes are exceedingly difficult to date. Particular
colours and particular processes continued in use for long periods, and
the distinctions between the productions of one reign and the next, or
even between those of the late Ming and the early Ch’ing dynasties, are
often almost unseizable. At best these differences consist in minute
peculiarities of form and potting, in the texture of the body and glaze,
and the finish of the base, which are only learnt by close study of actual
specimens and by training the eye to the general character of the wares
until the perception of the Ming style becomes instinctive. But
something further will be said on this subject in the chapter on Ming
technique.
 PLATE 81
Beaker-shaped Vase of bronze form, with dragon
and phœnix designs painted in underglaze blue,
and red, green and yellow enamels: background of
fairy flowers (pao hsiang hua) and borders of
 “rock and wave” pattern. Mark of the Wan Li
period (1573–1619) in six characters on the neck.
An Imperial piece. Carved wood stand with cloud
pattern.
Height 18½ inches. British Museum.
THE LAST OF THE MINGS

T’ai Ch’ang (1620)

T’ien Ch’i (1621–1627)

Ch’ung Chêng (1628–1643)

Chinese ceramic history, based on the official records, is silent on the
subject of the three last Ming reigns, and we are left to infer that during
the death struggles of the old dynasty and the establishment of the
Manchu Tartars on the throne work at the Imperial factory was virtually
suspended. The few existing specimens which bear the marks of T’ien
Ch’i and Ch’ung Chêng (the T’ai Ch’ang mark is apparently
unrepresented) are of little merit. A barrel-shaped incense vase with
floral scrolls and a large bowl with four-clawed dragons of the former
date in the British Museum are painted the one in dull greyish blue, and
the other in a bright but rather garish tint of the same colour; both have a
coarse body material with blisters and pitting in the glaze, and the
painting of the designs is devoid of any distinction. Similarly, a
polychrome saucer dish with the same mark and in the same collection,
decorated with an engraved dragon design filled in with purple glaze in a
green ground, carries on the early tradition of that type of Ming
polychrome, but the ware is coarse, the design crudely drawn, and the
colours impure.[210] From the same unflattering characteristics another
dish in the British Museum, with large patches of the three on-biscuit
colours—green, yellow and aubergine—may be recognised as of the
T’ien Ch’i make. This is a specimen of the so-called tiger skin ware, of
which K’ang Hsi and later examples are known—a ware which, even in
the best-finished specimens with underglaze engraved designs, is more
curious than beautiful. On the other hand, one of the delicate bowls with
biscuit figures in high relief, already described (p. 75), proves that the
potters of the T’ien Ch’i period were still capable of skilful work when
occasion demanded. A pair of wine cups in the British Museum, with
freely drawn designs of geese and rice plants in pale greyish blue under a
greyish glaze, are the solitary representatives of the Ch’ung Chêng mark.
In the absence of Imperial patronage, and with the inevitable trade
depression which followed in the wake of the fierce dynastic struggle, it
was fortunate for the Ching-tê Chên potters that a large trade with
European countries was developing. The Portuguese and Spanish had
already established trading connections with the Chinese, and the other
Continental nations—notably the Dutch—were now serious competitors.
The Dutch East India Company was an extensive importer of blue and
white porcelain, and we have already discussed one type of blue and
white which figures frequently in the Dutch pictures of the seventeenth
century.
There is another group of blue and white which can be definitely
assigned to this period of dynastic transition, between 1620–1662. A
comparative study of the various blue and white types had already led to
the placing of this ware in the middle of the seventeenth century, and Mr.
Perzynski, in those excellent articles[211] to which we have already
alluded, has set out the characteristics of this ware at some length, with a
series of illustrations which culminate in a dated example. There will be
no difficulty in finding a few specimens of this type in any large
collection of blue and white. It is recognised by a bright blue of slightly
violet tint under a glaze often hazy with minute bubbles, which
suggested to Mr. Perzynski the picturesque simile of “violets in milk.”
Other more tangible characteristics appear in the designs, which
commonly consist of a figure subject—a warrior or sage and attendant—
in a mountain scene bordered by a wall of rocks with pine trees and
swirling mist, drawn in a very mannered style and probably from some
stock pattern. Other common features are patches of herbage rendered by
pot-hook-like strokes, formal floral designs of a peculiar kind, such as
the tulip-like flower on the neck of Fig. 4 of Plate 82; the band of floral
scroll work on the shoulder of the same piece is also characteristic. In
many of the forms, such as cylindrical vases and beakers, the base is flat
and unglazed, and reveals a good white body, and European influence is
apparent in some of the shapes, such as the jugs and tankards.
As for the dating of this group, an early example of the style of
painting in the Salting Collection[212] has a silver mount of the early
seventeenth century, and a tankard of typical German form in the
Hamburg Museum has a silver cover dated 1642.[213] There is, besides, a
curious piece in the British Museum, the decoration of which has strong
affinities to this group. It is a bottle with flattened circular body and tall,
tapering neck, with landscape and figures on one side and on the other a
European design copied from the reverse of a Spanish dollar, and
surrounded by a strap-work border. The dollar, from a numismatic point
of view, might have been made equally well for Philip II. (1556–1598),
Philip IV. (1621–1665), or Charles II. (1665–1700), but there can be
little doubt from the style of the ware that it belonged to one of the two
earlier reigns.
A comparison of the ware and the blue of this group leads to the
placing of the fairly familiar type illustrated by Figs. 3 and 5 of Plate 82
in the same intermediate period, and similarly certain specimens of
polychrome, with underglaze blue and the usual enamels, display the
characteristic body and blue painting, and even some of the decorative
mannerisms. These specimens, particularly when of beaker form, are
often finished off with a band of ornament engraved under the glaze.
 Plate 82.—Late Ming Porcelain.
Fig. 1—Jar of Wan Li period, enamelled. Mark, a hare. Height 9 inches. British
Museum. Fig. 2. Bowl with Eight Immortals in relief, coloured glazes on the biscuit.
Height 3¼ inches. Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Figs. 3, 4 and 5.—Blue and white porcelain, early seventeenth century. Height of Fig. 5,
17 inches. British Museum.
 Plate 83.—Vase
With blue and white decoration of rockery, phœnixes, and flowering shrubs.
Found in India. Late Ming period. Height 22 inches. Halsey Collection.
 CHAPTER VI
THE TECHNIQUE OF THE MING PORCELAIN

A
lthough the processes involved in the various kinds of decoration
and in the different wares have been discussed in their several
places, a short summary of those employed in the manufacture of
the Ching-tê Chên porcelain during the Ming period will be found
convenient. The bulk of the materials required were found in the
surrounding districts, if not actually in the Fou-liang Hsien. The best
kaolin (or porcelain earth) was mined in the Ma-ts’ang mountains until
the end of the sixteenth century, when the supply was exhausted and
recourse was had to another deposit at Wu-mên-t’o. The quality of the
Wu-mên-t’o kaolin was first-rate, but as the cost of transport was greater
and the manager of the Imperial factory refused to pay a proportionately
higher price, very little was obtained. The material for the large dragon
bowls, and presumably for the other vessels of abnormal size, was
obtained from Yü-kan and Wu-yüan and mixed with powdered stone
(shih mo) from the Hu-t’ien district. Other kaolins, brought from Po-
yang Hsien and the surrounding parts, were used by the private potters,
not being sufficiently fine for the Imperial wares.
The porcelain stone, which combined with the kaolin to form the two
principal ingredients of true porcelain, came from the neighbourhoods of
Yü-kan and Wu-yüan, where it was pounded and purified in mills
worked by the water power of the mountains, arriving at Ching-tê Chên
in the form of briquettes. Hence the name petuntse,[214] which, like
kaolin, has passed into our own language, and the term shih mo
(powdered stone) used above.
The glaze earth (yu t’u) in various qualities was supplied from
different places. Thus the Ch’ang-ling material was used for the blue or
green (ch’ing) and the yellow glazes, the Yi-k’êng for the pure white
porcelain, and the T’ao-shu-mu for white porcelain and for “blue and
white.” This glazing material was softened with varying quantities of
ashes of lime burnt with ferns or other frondage. Neither time nor toil
was spared in the preparation of the Imperial porcelains, and according
to the T’ung-ya[215] the vessels were, at one time at any rate, dried for a
whole year after they had been shaped and before finishing them off on
the lathe. When finished off on the lathe they were glazed and dried, and
if there were any inequalities in the covering they were glazed again.
Furthermore, if any fault appeared after firing they were put on the lathe,
ground smooth, and reglazed and refired.
It was not the usual custom with Chinese potters to harden the ware
with a slight preliminary firing before proceeding to decorate and apply
the glaze, and consequently such processes as underglaze painting in
blue, embossing, etc., were undergone while the body was still relatively
soft and required exceedingly careful handling. The glaze was applied in
several ways—by dipping in a tub of glazing liquid (i.e. glaze material
finely levigated and mixed with water), by painting the glaze on with a
brush, or by blowing it on from a bamboo tube, the end of which was
covered with a piece of tightly stretched gauze. One of the last
operations was the finishing off of the foot, which was hollowed out and
trimmed and the mark added (if it was to be in blue, as was usually the
case) and covered with a spray of glaze. To the connoisseur the finish of
the foot is full of meaning. It is here he gets a glimpse of the body which
emerges at the raw edge of the rim, and by feeling it he can tell whether
the material is finely levigated or coarse-grained. The foot rim of the
Ming porcelains is plainly finished without the beading or grooves of the
K’ang Hsi wares, which were evidently designed to fit a stand[216]; and
the raw edge discloses a ware which is almost always of fine white
texture and close grain (often almost unctuous to the touch), though the
actual surface generally assumes a brownish tinge in the heat of the kiln.
The base is often unglazed in the case of large jars and vases, rarely in
the cups, bowls, dishes, or wine pots, except among the coarser types of
export porcelain. A little sand or grit adhering to the foot rim and
radiating lines under the base caused by a jerky movement of the lathe
are signs of hasty finish, which occur not infrequently on the export
wares. The importance of the foot in the eyes of the Chinese collector
may be judged from the following extract from the Shih ch’ing jih
cha[217]:—
“Distinguish porcelain by the vessel’s foot. The Yung Lo 'press-hand’ bowls
have a glazed bottom but a sandy foot; Hsüan ware altar cups have 'cauldron’[218]
bottom (i.e. convex beneath) and wire-like foot; Chia Ching ware flat cups
decorated with fish have a 'loaf’ centre[219] (i.e. convex inside) and rounded foot.
All porcelain vessels issue from the kiln with bottoms and feet which can testify to
the fashion of the firing.”

It is not always easy unaided by illustration to interpret the Chinese

metaphors, but it is a matter of observation that many of the Sung bowls,
for instance, have a conical finish under the base, and that the same
pointed finish appears on some of the early Ming types, such as the red
bowls with Yung Lo mark. The “loaf centre” of the Chia Ching bowls
seems to refer to the convexity described on p. 35. The blue and white
conical bowls with Yung Lo mark (see p. 6) have, as a rule, a small
glazed base and a relatively wide unglazed foot rim.
But this digression on the nether peculiarities of the different wares
has led us away from the subject of glaze. The proverbial thickness and
solidity of the early Ming glazes, which are likened to “massed lard,” are
due to the piling up of successive coatings of glaze to ensure a perfect
covering for the body, and the same process was responsible for the
undulating appearance of the surface, which rose up in small rounded
elevations “like grains of millet” and displayed corresponding
depressions.[220] This uneven effect, due to an excess of glaze, was much
prized by the Chinese connoisseurs, who gave it descriptive names like
“millet markings,” “chicken skin,” or “orange peel,” and the potters of
later periods imitated it freely and often to excess. Porcelain glazes are
rarely dead white, and, speaking generally, it may be said that the
qualifying tint in the Ming period was greenish. Indeed, this is the
prevailing tone of Chinese glazes, but it is perhaps accentuated by the
thickness of the Ming glaze. This greenish tinge is most noticeable when
the ware is ornamented with delicate traceries in pure white clay or slip
under the glaze.
 PLATE 84
Vase of baluster form with small mouth (mei p’ing). Porcelain with coloured
glazes on the biscuit, the designs outlined in slender fillets of clay. A meeting
of sages in a landscape beneath an ancient pine tree, the design above their
heads representing the mountain mist. On the shoulders are large ju-i shaped
lappets enclosing lotus sprays, with pendent jewels between: fungus (ling
 chih) designs on the neck. Yellow glaze under the base. A late example of this
style of ware, probably seventeenth century.
Height 11 inches. Salting Collection (Victoria and Albert Museum).

As for the shape of the various Ming wares, much has already been
said in reference to the various lists of Imperial porcelains, more
particularly with regard to the household wares such as dishes, bowls,
wine pots, boxes, etc. No precise description, however, is given in these
lists of the actual forms of the vases, and we have to look elsewhere for
these. There are, however, extracts from books on vases[221] and on the
implements of the scholar’s table in the T’ao shuo and the T’ao lu, in
which a large number of shapes are enumerated. Observation of actual
specimens shows that bronze and metal work supplied the models for the
more elaborate forms which would be made, partly or wholly, in moulds.
These metallic forms, so much affected by the Chinese literatus, though
displaying great cleverness in workmanship and elaboration of detail, are
not so pleasing to the unprejudiced Western eye as the simple wheel-
made forms of which the Chinese potter was a perfect master. Of the
latter, the most common in Ming porcelains are the potiche-shaped
covered jar (Plate 80) and the high-shouldered baluster vase with small
neck and narrow mouth (Plate 84), which was known as mei p’ing or
prunus jar from its suitability for holding a flowering branch of that
decorative flower. Next to these, the most familiar Ming forms are the
massive and often clumsy vases of double gourd shape, or with a square
body and gourd-shaped neck, bottles with tapering neck and globular
body, ovoid jars, melon-shaped pots with lobed sides, jars with rounded
body and short narrow neck, all of which occur in the export wares.
These are, as a rule, strongly built and of good white material, and if the
shoulders are contracted (as is nearly always the case) they are made in
two sections, or more in the case of the double forms, with no pains
taken to conceal the seam. Indeed, elaborate finish had no part in the
construction of these strong, rugged forms, which are matched by the
bold design and free drawing of the decoration. I may add that sets of
vases hardly come within the Ming period. They are an un-Chinese idea,
and evolved in response to European demands. The mantelpiece sets of
five (three covered jars and two beakers) are a development of the mid-
seventeenth century when the Dutch traders commanded the market. The
Chinese altar-set of five ritual utensils is the nearest approach to a
uniform set, consisting as it did of an incense burner, two flower vases,
and two pricket candlesticks, often with the same decoration throughout.
 The Ming bowls vary considerably in form, from the wide-mouthed,
small-footed bowl (p’ieh) of the early period to the rounded forms, such
as Fig. 1 of Plate 74. In some cases the sides are moulded in
compartments, and the rims sharply everted. Others again are very
shallow, with hollow base and no foot rim; others follow the shape of the
Buddhist alms bowl with rounded sides and contracted mouth; and there
are large bowls for gold-fish (yü kang), usually with straight sides
slightly expanding towards the upper part and broad flat rims, cisterns,
hot-water bowls with double bottom and plug hole beneath, square bowls
(Plate 66, Fig. 1) for scraps and slops, and large vessels, probably of
punch-bowl form, known as “wine seas.” The commonest type of
Chinese dish is saucer-shaped, but they had also flat plates bounded by
straight sides and a narrow rim, which has no relation to the broad,
canted rim of the European plate constructed to carry salt and
condiments.
The Chinese use porcelain plaques for inlaying in furniture and
screens, or mounting as pictures, and there are, besides, many objects of
purely native design, such as barrel-shaped garden seats for summer use,
cool pillows, and hat stands with spherical top and tall, slender stems.
But it was only natural that when they began to cater for the foreign
market many foreign forms should have crept in, such as the Persian
ewer with pear-shaped body, long elegant handle and spout, the latter
usually joined to the neck by an ornamental stay: the hookah bowl:
weights with wide base and ball-shaped tops for keeping down Indian
mats, etc., when: spread on the ground; and at the end of the Ming period
a few European shapes, such as jugs and tankards. In the Ch’ing dynasty
European forms were made wholesale.

In considering the colours used in the decoration, we naturally take

first the limited number which were developed in the full heat of the
porcelain furnace, the couleurs de grand feu of the French classification.
These were either incorporated in the glazing material or painted on the
porcelain body and protected by the glaze. Chief among them was blue,
which we have already discussed in its various qualities. The
Mohammedan blue—the su-ni-p’o of the Hsüan Tê period and the hui
hui ch’ing of the reigns of Chêng Tê and Chia Ching—was an imported
material of pre-eminent quality but of uncertain supply. It was
supplemented—and, indeed, usually blended—with the native
mineral[222] which was found in several places. Thus the po-t’ang blue
(so called from a place name) was found in the district of Lo-p’ing Hsien
in the Jao-chou Fu; but the mines were closed after a riot in the Chia
Ching period, and its place was taken by a blue known as shih-tzŭ ch’ing
(stone, or mineral, blue) from the prefecture of Jui-chou in Kiangsi.
According to Bushell[223] the po-t’ang blue was very dark in colour, and
it was sometimes known as Fo t’ou ch’ing (Buddha’s head blue) from
the traditional colour of the hair of Buddha. Another material used for
painting porcelain was the hei chê shih (black red mineral) from Hsin-
chien in Lu-ling, which was also called wu ming tzŭ. It was evidently a
cobaltiferous ore of manganese and a blue-producing mineral, doubtless
the same as the wu ming i (nameless wonder), which we have already
found in use as a name for cobalt.
Much confusion exists, in Chinese works, on the subject of these
blues, and it is stated in one place that the “Buddha head blue” was a
variety of the wu ming i, which would make the po t’ang blue and the wu
ming i and the wu ming tzŭ one and the same thing. In effect they were
the same species of mineral, and the local distinctions are of no account
at the present day except in so far as they explain the variety of tints in
the Ming blue and white. It is, however, interesting to learn from a note
on Mohammedan blue in the K’ang Hsi Encyclopædia that the native
mineral, when carefully prepared, was very like the Mohammedan blue
in tint.
All these blues were used either for painting under the glaze or for
mixing with the glaze to form ground colours or monochromes, which
varied widely in tint, according to the quantity and quality of the cobalt,
from dark violet blue (chi ch’ing) through pale and dark shades of the
ordinary blue colour to slaty blue and lavender. Some of them—notably
the lavender and the dark violet blue—are often associated with crackle,
being used as an overglaze covering a greyish white crackled porcelain.
This treatment of the surface is well illustrated by a small covered jar in
the British Museum with a dark violet blue apparently uncrackled but
covering a crackled glaze. Two lavender blue bowls in the Hippisley
Collection with the Chêng Tê mark are similarly crackled. Other Ming
blue monochromes are a small pot found in Borneo and now in the
British Museum with a dark blue of the ordinary tint used in painted
wares, and a wine pot in the same collection with dragon spout and
handle of a peculiar slaty lavender tint strewn with black specks, the
colour evidently due to a strain of manganese in the cobalt.
Next in importance to the blue is the underglaze red derived from
copper, which was discussed at length in connection with the Hsüan Tê
porcelains.[224] Its various tints, described as hsien hung (fresh red), pao
shih hung (ruby red), and cinnabar bowls “red as the sun,” are, we may
be sure, more or less accidental varieties of the capricious copper red.
The same mineral produced the sang de bœuf, maroon and liver reds, and
probably the peach bloom[225] of the K’ang Hsi and later porcelains.
Other colours incorporated in the high-fired glaze in the Ming period
are the pea green (tou ch’ing) or celadon, and the lustrous brown (tzŭ
chin) which varied from coffee colour to that of old gold. Both of these
groups derived their tint from iron oxide, carried in the medium of
ferruginous earth. The use of two or more of these coloured glazes on
one piece is a type of polychrome which was doubtless used on the Ming
as on the later porcelains.
The glazes fired at a lower temperature, in the cooler parts of the great
kiln, and known for that reason as couleurs de demi-grand feu, include
turquoise (ts’ui sê), made from a preparation of old copper (ku t’ung) and
nitre; bright yellow (chin huang), composed of 1⅕ oz. of antimony
mixed with 16 oz. of pulverised lead; bright green (chin lü), composed of
1 ⅖ oz. of pulverised copper, 6 oz. of powdered quartz and 16 oz. of
pulverised lead; purple (tzŭ sê), composed of 1 oz. of cobaltiferous ore of
manganese, 6 oz. of powdered quartz and 16 oz. of pulverised lead.
These colours, melting as they did at a lower temperature than that
required to vitrify the porcelain body, had to be applied to an already
fired porcelain “biscuit.”[226]
The irregular construction of the Chinese kilns resulted in a great
variety of firing conditions, of which the Chinese potter made good use;
so that, by a judicious arrangement of the wares, glazes which required a
comparatively low temperature were fired in the same kiln as those
which needed the same heat as the porcelain body itself. The glazes just
enumerated are familiar from the large covered jars, vases, garden seats,
etc., with designs raised, carved, or pierced in outline, many of which
date from the fifteenth century.[227] Their manufacture continued
throughout the Ming period, both in porcelain and pottery, and in the
latter, at any rate, continued into the Ch’ing dynasty.
 Another group of glazes applied likewise to the biscuit and fired in
the temperate parts of the kiln differs from the last mentioned in its
greater translucency.[228] These are the san ts’ai or three colours, viz.
green, yellow and aubergine, all of which contain a considerable
proportion of lead, and differ little in appearance from the on-glaze
enamels of the muffle kiln. They were used either as monochromes,
plain or covering incised designs, or in combination to wash over the
spaces between the outlines of a pattern which had been incised or
painted on the biscuit.
Finally, the enamels of the Wan li wu ts’ai,[229] overglaze colours used
in addition to underglaze blue, were composed of a vitreous flux
coloured with a minute quantity of metallic oxide. The flux, being a glass
containing a high percentage of lead, was fusible at such a low
temperature that it was not possible to fire them in the large kiln.
Consequently these enamels were painted on to the finished glaze, a
process which greatly increased the freedom of design, and fired in a
small “muffle” or enameller’s kiln, where the requisite heat to melt the
flux and fix the colours could be easily obtained.
Though the T’ao shuo, in the section dealing with Ming technique,
makes a general allusion to painting in colours on the glaze, the only
specific reference to any colour of the muffle kiln, excepting gold, is to
the red obtained from sulphate of iron (fan hung sê). This, we are told,
was made with 1 oz. of calcined sulphate of iron (ch’ing fan) and 5 oz. of
carbonate of lead, mixed with Canton ox-glue to make it adhere to the
porcelain before it was fired. This is the iron red, the rouge de fer of the
French, which varies in tint from orange or coral to deep brick red, and
in texture from an impalpable film almost to the consistency of a glaze,
according to the quantity of lead flux used with it. On the older wares it
is often deeply iridescent and lustrous, owing to the decomposition of the
lead flux. This fan hung is the colour which the Chia Ching potters were
fain to substitute for the underglaze copper red (chi hung) when the usual
material for that highly prized colour had come to an end, and difficulty
was experienced in finding an effective substitute.
The remaining colours of the on-glaze palette are more obviously
enamels; that is to say, glassy compounds; and as they were, in
accordance with Chinese custom, very lightly charged with colouring
matter, it was necessary to pile them on thickly where depth of colour
was required.
 Hence the thickly encrusted appearance of much of the Chinese
enamelled porcelain. The Wan Li enamels consisted of transparent
greens of several shades (all derived from copper), including a very blue
green which seems to have been peculiar to the Ming palette, yellow
(from antimony) pale and clear or brownish and rather opaque, and
transparent aubergine, a colour derived from manganese and varying in
tint from purple to brown. Two thin dry pigments—one an iron red and
the other a brown black colour derived from manganese—were used for
drawing outlines; and the brown black was also used in masses with a
coating of transparent green to form a green black colour, the same
which is so highly prized on the famille noire porcelains of the K’ang
Hsi period. As for the blue enamel of the K’ang Hsi period, it can hardly
be said to have existed before the end of the Ming dynasty.[230]
Gilding, which was apparently in use throughout[231] the Ming period,
was applied to the finished porcelain and fired in the muffle kiln. The
gold leaf, combined with one-tenth by weight of carbonate of lead, was
mixed with gum and painted on with a brush. The effect, as seen on the
red and green bowls (Plate 74), was light and filmy, and though the gold
often has the unsubstantial appearance of size-gilding, in reality it
adheres firmly[232] and is not easily scratched.
Of the other processes described in the T’ao shuo,[233] embossed (tui
) decoration was effected by applying strips or shavings of the body
material and working them into form with a wet brush. Some of the more
delicate traceries, in scarcely perceptible relief, are painted in white slip.
Engraved (chui ) decoration was effected by carving with an iron
graving-tool on the body while it was still soft. And so, too, with the
openwork (ling lung), which has already been described.[234] All these
processes were in use in one form or another from the earliest reigns of
the Ming dynasty, and some of them, at any rate, have been encountered
on the Sung wares. High reliefs, such as the figures on the bowls
described on p. 74, would be separately modelled and “luted” on by
means of liquid clay; and, as already noted, these reliefs were often left
in the biscuit state, though at times we find them covered with coloured
glazes. It is hardly necessary to add that the same processes were applied
to pottery, and that the reliefs took many other forms besides figures, e.g.
dragon designs, foliage, scrollwork, symbols, etc.
 PLATE 85
Vase with crackled greenish grey glaze coated on the exterior with
transparent apple green enamel: the base unglazed. Probably
sixteenth century.
Height 14 inches. British Museum.
 The crackled glazes of the Sung period were still made, though the
Ming tendency was to substitute painted decoration for monochrome;
and we have already noted the crackled blue and lavender in which a
second glaze is added to a grey white crackle. This process is particularly
noticeable in the “apple green” monochromes (Plate 85), both of the
Ming and Ch’ing dynasties, in which a green overglaze itself uncrackled
is washed on to a crackled stone grey porcelain. The green is often
carried down over the slightly browned biscuit of the foot rim, forming a
band of brown. But this, so far from being a peculiarity of the Ming
technique, is much more conspicuous on the porcelains of the early
eighteenth century, when it was the constant practice to dress the foot
rim of the crackled wares with a brown ferruginous earth in imitation of
the “iron foot” of their Sung prototypes.
The work at the Imperial factory[235] was divided between twenty-
three departments, nine of which were occupied with accessories, such as
the making of ropes and barrels, general carpentry, and even boat
building. Five separate departments were employed in making the large
bowls, the wine cups, the plates, the large round dishes, and the tea cups;
another in preparing the “paste” or body material, and another in making
the “seggars” or fireclay cases in which the ware was packed in the kiln.
Five more were occupied in the details of decoration, viz. the mark and
seal department, the department for engraving designs, the department
for sketching designs, the department for writing, and the department for
colouring.
It does not appear that the work of decoration was so minutely
subdivided in the Ming period as in later times, when we are told that a
piece of porcelain might pass through more than seventy hands; but it is
clear, at least, that the outlining and filling in of the designs were
conducted in separate sheds. This is, indeed, self-apparent from the Ming
blue and white porcelains, the designs of which are characterised by
strong and clear outlines filled in with flat washes of colour.
With regard to the actual designs, we are told that in the Ch’êng Hua
period they were drawn by the best artists at the Court, and from another
passage[236] it is clear that the practice of sending the patterns from the
palace continued in later reigns as well. Such designs would no doubt
accumulate, and probably they were collected together from time to time
and issued in the form of pattern books.[237] Another method in which
the painters of Ming blue and white were served with patterns is related
in the T’ao shuo[238]:—“For painting in blue, the artists were collected
each day at dawn and at noon, and the colour for painting was distributed
among them. Two men of good character were first selected, the larger
pieces of porcelain being given to one, the smaller pieces to the other;
and when they had finished their painting, the amount of the material
used was calculated before the things were taken to the furnace to be
baked. If the results were satisfactory, then the pieces were given as
models to the other painters, and in the rest of the pieces painted, the
quantity of the colour used and the depth of the tint was required to be in
exact accordance with these models.” There was little scope for
originality or individual effort under this system, where everything, even
to the amount of material used, was strictly prescribed. To translate their
model with feeling and accuracy was the best that could be expected
from the rank and file. But with the manual skill and patient industry for
which the Chinese are proverbial, and the good taste which prevailed in
the direction of the work, it was a system admirably suited to the task,
and it unquestionably led to excellent results.
As to the systems in use in the private factories we have no
information, but we may fairly assume that their processes were much
the same; and that, not having the benefit of the designs sent from Court,
they were more dependent upon the pattern books and stock designs
more or less remotely connected with the work of famous painters.